By Sri Ravipati
(SAN FRANCISCO) Canadian aerodynamic engineers are using full-size sections of the Golden Gate Bridge's railing inside a wind tunnel to come up with a solution to silence the bridge's loud "humming" sounds.
Last year, the bridge's sidewalk safety railing on its western side was retrofitted with around 12,000 wide slats replaced by narrower ones.
Safety was increased, but so was the noise, as gusts of wind pass through the new slats.
The noise has been heard as far away as Daly City, which is about 10 miles south of San Francisco.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported the retrofit of the western sidewalk rail last year cost $12 million. The retrofit of the retrofit is already costing $260,000 in consulting fees.
After the tests are complete, the new retrofit could take many months to install.
“We’ll have more to say this summer,” Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz, a spokesperson for the bridge said per The Chronicle. “It’s a tricky business. We want to be absolutely sure we get it right. We will never sacrifice the structural integrity of the bridge but we want to be responsive to our neighbors.’’
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